138 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



STREET TREE PLANTING IN SPAIN 



A view on one of the principal streets of Barcelona showing the well- 

 trimmed character of their shade trees, which in this case are of syca- 

 more. The two-wheeled carts shown in this picture are a charac- 

 teristic sight on all Spanish highways. 



as forests in this country. It is not likely that Spain 

 contains over 12,000,000 acres of forest which we should 

 classify as such in this country. Of this total area prac- 

 tically three-fourths belong to private interests, and only 

 a little less than one-fourth belongs to municipal forests, 

 the remainder amounting to a little over 600,000 acres, 

 are owned and controlled by the central government at 

 Madrid. State forestry is under the jurisdiction of the 

 Ministry of Development and is directly under the 



Director General of Agriculture, Mines and Forests. 

 The faculty of the Royal Forestry College also acts as 

 officers of the Forest Service. A few forests, amounting 

 to about 15,000 acres belong to the church and to indi- 

 vidual monasteries and to other secular interests. 



There is a strong movement under way to encourage 

 the appropriation of more funds with which to extend the 

 areas of the National Forests, for only in this way can 

 forestry be encouraged and developed on any compre- 

 hensive scale. Forestry officials at Madrid estimate that 

 instead of having only about 10 per cent of the area of 

 the country included in real forests as at present, at 

 least 30 per cent should be well forested. 



Some privately owned forests are managed on con- 

 servative forestry principles and receive careful pro- 

 tection, but a large majority of them have suffered from 

 over-cutting, and later deteriorated through ravages of 



LOADS OF WOOD FOR FUEL 



A commom sight on the streets of Seville in southern Snain <-. 

 ? uat c, of branches and fuel wood were DroSgh, "n from surroundfng' 

 win wJ^ e ! n0t " ly *<" <<""<: Purpose,, but for industrial plants f, 

 well \Vood ,s even used in many of the locomotives and was the 

 principal fuel used for heating throughout Spain during the , owing to 

 the scarcity of imported coal /which normally come, from England 



PRIMITIVE WOOD-SAWING METHODS 



Primitive methods of sawing are still occasionally employed in Spain. 

 Many features of the lumber industry are still in a very elemen- 

 tary and primitive stage of development as compared with 

 conditions in this country. Manual labor is resorted to in most of the 

 wood-working establishments to a much greater extent than is com- 

 monly found in this country. 



fires and the intensive grazing of herds of sheep anu 

 goats. Another serious menace to the development of 

 forests in Spain is the severe cutting for charcoal and 

 fuel wood before. the trees have attained a fair size. The 

 curling smoke rising from charcoal pits is a common 

 sight in all Spanish forested mountain districts. Fre- 

 quently trees which have attained a diameter of from 

 five to eight inches are cut and used for charcoal, whereas 

 they should be left to reach a much larger size. The 

 recent world's war has even intensified the situation, 

 because Spain is practically without coal, and therefore 

 largely dependent upon England for her imports. It 

 naturally follows, therefore, that Spain was compelled 

 to resort to her native forests to compensate for the 

 shortage of imported coal for a period of over four years. 



